You Need to Relax
by Thalius
Summary: Blue Team & Co attempt to take some shore leave on Onyx. The results are mixed.


"I've figured out who your primary suspect is."

Veta had opted to work in the commons area of their living quarters instead of her office, both because the view was nicer and because she could prop her legs up on the coffee table. And despite the number of people who were currently living in the small complex, most of them had no issue keeping themselves busy.

Her Ferrets were completing a full unit course on civilian engagement that focused on de-escalating violence—something that, for a fully trained Spartan, required a good deal more training than a single eight-hour seminar. Mendez, Tom and Lucy, who were their gracious hosts for the duration of their stay on Onyx, had demanding schedules as security heads for Paxopolis and rarely came home except to sleep and eat. Linda she hadn't seen in four days, something she was assured was nothing to be concerned about, and Kelly was apparently hellbent on exploring the dense forests just outside the research settlement—sometimes accompanying scientists as an informal offer of protection against the wilds and sometimes on her own.

Lopis had more than enough to keep herself busy. They'd come to Onyx for training, given how diverse the settlement population was and how amenable most people were to seeing Spartans walking around, but it was also the reason for her workload. Interspecies joint-op research on a Forerunner shield world apparently fomented a good deal of conflict between residents. Given that most people on Onyx were dedicated to R&D, they were light on personnel to manage the daily problems inherent in all large population centres. Officially she was only supposed to be monitoring the Gammas' progress and acting as a liaison for Blue Team's shore leave station here, but unofficially she was helping ONIRF-SEC investigate a string of arsons—and subsequent explosions—along several Unggoy housing blocks.

The paperwork of which she was working on now. Technically she shouldn't be working in any environment where case files could be viewed by third parties, but Mendez's house was about as secure as satellite workplaces went, and her discipline on file security had gotten comparatively sloppy since joining ONI. Anywhere and anything was a potential security risk now, so old habits about only doing work in greenlit locations were somewhat useless.

All of which was to say that she still could not share any information on the case with anyone besides approved SEC staff. And Fred, who was the only person that hadn't found any way to entertain himself besides walking around listlessly in the living room, was attempting to break her of that.

"Did you watch the news?" she asked, not looking up from her laptop. She could hear the quiet smack of a ball in his hands, which he'd been tossing around for the past fifteen minutes, so she knew he wasn't standing directly behind her and reading over her shoulder. Yet.

"No," he replied, rolling the ball between his palms. "Didn't have to. You need to touch up on your infosec."

"I'll have to attend some more lectures." She closed her laptop and looked up, deciding that she had time to humour him. "So what did you figure out?"

"Your UNSUB is almost definitely human," he began, smacking his open palm on the ball. She held up her hands and he tossed it to her.

"Excellent detective work so far." She tossed it back to him, which he caught and then threw at the wall—much more forcefully than before. It rebounded with alarming speed, but he caught it easily, almost lazily, before tossing it back over to her.

"Potentially male," he continued, ignoring her. She passed the ball to him and they threw it back and forth as he spoke. "Has enough knowledge of the surveillance ecosystem near the Unggoy housing plaza that he disabled the video feeds where the fires took place. Could either be UNSC or a civilian family member close to the on-site security personnel here. There was also a recorded unauthorised entry of a research staff member accessing the eastern surveillance prefab, but the pass credentials had been fabricated which means it wasn't necessarily anyone in R&D."

"You should become a detective." She tossed him a lowball that he caught without issue. Fred held onto the ball, flexing his fingers around the rubber, before turning and whipping it into the wall again. He had to flinch back to catch it this time, and she saw a tiny scuff mark where it had impacted the plaster. "And you're going to put holes in Mendez's wall."

"It's on a support beam," he said, wrapping his knuckles where he'd thrown the ball.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't you have anything better to do than memorise the support infrastructure of the house?"

"Like what?" Despite his insistence that he wouldn't damage the interior wall, he switched to bouncing the ball by his feet.

"The shield world is your oyster." She reopened her laptop and sighed. "How did you figure all that out, anyway? None of that was on the news."

"I told you I didn't watch it." He sat down in the armchair across from her, ball still in hand. "And I can read your screen from across the room."

"That's boring. Thought you'd hacked into my computer or something."

The joke didn't land because Fred seemed to take that as a serious suggestion on how to pass the time, judging by the sudden pensive look on his face. The ball became malformed under the pressure of his fingers.

She stretched out and tapped his knee with a toe when he didn't respond, and he frowned up at her.

"Go outside. Do something. And don't ask me what."

He raised a brow. "Aren't you supposed to be our community liaison?"

"That was before some jackass decided to light a bunch of apartments on fire. And Kelly and Linda didn't require any of my help finding something fun to do."

He sank lower into the armchair and his legs stretched out in front of him. For a Spartan, that came dangerously close to pouting. "Because What they're doing is mindless and easy."

"That's the point of shore leave, yes," she said dryly. He glared at her. "And if anyone needs a dose of mindless easy activities, it's you. How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Fine," he said immediately, his tone curt. "Ninety days of medical leave is excessive."

"Heard standard timeframe for major artery failure was six months."

"Spartans aren't standard," he said offhandedly, then stood up from the chair. His restless, fluid grace made him seem like an anxious bird flitting about the room. A very large bird.

"Ah."

"What?"

"Maybe you're the arsonist," she remarked. His glower deepened. "You fit the description pretty well. Solid motive, probably more than most people, and certainly the means. Short-term guest berthing in the head of security's home gives you ample opportunity to cause mayhem in an area that you don't have to live in for long. The timeframe with your arrival fits, too." She grinned when all he did was glare at her. "A bored Spartan vacationing in a city with tons of ex-Covenant species around? A compelling tale, if you ask me."

"Back to accusing me of criminal activity, I see." The ball left his hand and returned so quickly she didn't see it, only hearing the rubber smack as it impacted the wall. The scuff got a little larger.

"It's fun. And you seem attracted to compromising circumstances."

"Completely accidental," he assured her. The ball hit the wall again.

"Even still, I'll keep you on the suspect list."

"Are you being serious?"

"That is classified, Lieutenant," she replied. "Now go bother someone else."

* * *

In a surprising bout of serendipity, they were all home that evening for dinner. Even Linda reappeared, seemingly from nowhere. She offered no explanation for where she'd been and everyone was wise enough not to bother asking. She'd share on her own time—or not.

But cooking for nearly a dozen people was a task that nobody wanted to undertake, so a massive takeout order was placed instead. And while it wasn't cramped in the house, eating at the small kitchen table wasn't logistically possible. Which Veta was just fine with—having dinner outside and watching the sun set, or whatever the hell it did, on Mendez's back porch was a wonderful way to spend the evening.

They'd ordered an array of food, from pizza to ramen bowls to some fusion dishes she'd never seen before, and everyone picked what they liked. The Gammas were currently in control of the pizza boxes and didn't seem like they'd give that up anytime soon. They did pass her a slice when she asked nicely, though.

"How was class?" she asked them, sipping at a beer. They were down on the grass, their lanky legs spread out and pizza boxes on their laps.

"Boring," Olivia replied, and Mark and Ash nodded in agreement. "It's just a bunch of review from what we did at the Mill, but with more aliens this time."

"Repetition is good," she told them. "Especially with—"

"Yeah, yeah. Killing is bad, don't start another war, all that," Mark interrupted.

She raised a brow. "If that's your attitude, you guys still have a long way to go."

"That's not _my_ attitude," Ash protested.

"The one DI kept giving us weird looks," Olivia continued. "I accessed his datapad during lunch to check if he was some ONI plant but I didn't find anything except weird strategy games, which I don't think you're supposed to download on UNSC devices."

Veta glanced over at Fred gave him a look. "I think you're being shown up."

His only response was a roll of his eyes before he took a bite of his food. He was eating a gyro and was seated beside Kelly on the porch.

Tom gave them both an odd look. "What did you do today?"

"We learned that Fred is probably the housing plaza arsonist," Veta answered him.

"She's joking," Fred explained, but it only deepened Tom's frown.

"Did you spend all day in the house?" Kelly asked.

"I'm still adjusting," he said defensively.

Lucy reached over Tom to tap Fred's leg, then signed something at him. He shook his head back to her and replied with a flick of his fingers.

"That's not a bad idea," Linda said, watching them. "Mountain range isn't far. Be a good hike."

Fred shrugged. "I don't know."

They continued to give him suggestions, which he either dodged or dismissed, and Veta turned her attention to Mendez. He was also seated on the grass but separate from the Gammas, his plate cleaned off and a beer resting beside him. He rarely spoke, only watched and listened. She'd maybe had five minutes of conversation with him in total since they'd landed on Onyx, which had been four days ago, and all of those minutes had been spent discussing the arson case. She'd have to ask the Gammas if that was normal for him.

"I'm just worried," Fred said then, and she looked back to him. "About stumbling onto some Forerunner artifact and activating something that shouldn't be turned on. I don't want a repeat of—" He glanced at Veta and his mouth quirked. "Well, I don't want to activate anything weird."

"Oh, come on. You peeked at the arson case."

Tom did a double take. "Wait, what?"

"This is a lot more classified than some fires," Fred replied. "And more dangerous."

"Lieutenant," Tom cut in. "You're not approved to access that case file. And besides which, you shouldn't be—"

"Lopis had it out. It was hard not to look at it, and I'm sure I could help."

Veta gave him glare, not appreciating his snitching. "You weren't supposed to be in the house—"

Mendez cleared his throat. It wasn't obnoxious or even all that loud, but it was enough for the Spartans to hear, and they turned to look at him.

"I was informed in no uncertain terms that you are not allowed to do work of any kind for ninety days, Lieutenant," he said. "That was part of the deal for your station on Onyx."

Fred's back straightened and his expression sobered. "Of course, sir."

"And there is a list of pre-approved sites for civilians to explore that are confirmed to be safe and dormant. You won't have to worry about—" His eyes flicked to Veta for a moment, and she swore she saw a sparkle of humour in them. "Well, you know."

"Boogie-men," Veta supplied, and Fred's mouth twitched. "I'll go with you to one tomorrow, if you like. Do some liaising."

Fred looked to Kelly and Linda before glancing back at her, as if asking for permission. "What about the case?"

"I made some good headway sorting through evidence today. And I'm not technically supposed to be working either," she added, giving Mendez a look.

He nodded. "I appreciate your consultation on the case. It's helped a good deal so far."

"Alright," Fred said finally, and took a sip of his water. "Tomorrow."

"And once you're done worrying we can go hiking," Kelly added, elbowing him. He just rolled his eyes again before turning back to his supper.


End file.
